Records / Negotiation levers

Price exclusivity by what it covers: sole distribution earns a little more, sole use by one buyer earns a multiple

What exclusivity is worth depends on what it covers. Where it means sole distribution through one platform, platforms pay suppliers about 1.25 to 2 times the non-exclusive rate (Pond5 40 against 30 percent; Alamy 50 against 40 percent at its top tier only; Envato 62.5 to 87.5 percent kept against 45 percent, until it dropped the premium in 2026): what a platform pays for exclusive supply, so a floor, not what a buyer pays for sole use. In the one disclosed pair with the same buyer and the same data, GSK paid 23andMe $50M for a fifth exclusive year (2022) and $20M for a one-year non-exclusive licence (2023), about 2.5 times, though the exclusive years also carried a joint drug discovery collaboration and the later licence added new data. RL-environment founders put sole use by one buyer at 4 to 5 times. Waiving exclusivity has a separable dollar price: Tempus, as licensee, gave up exclusivity on a data licence carried at over $40.1M gross in return for $7.9M lower future payments, and wrote the asset down by $7.4M. Troveo's worked example (100 units non-exclusive, 150 or sometimes 200 exclusive) is an illustration, not a deal.

Dated 10 Sep 2026Source checked 19 Oct 2026Basis: strong